Own Your Zone: Turning Stress Into Strength Under Pressure | Stories With Traction Podcast

In this episode of Stories with Traction, Matt Zaun sits down with performance coach, speaker, and former pro tennis player Jeff Salzenstein to unpack what it means to “own your zone,” a powerful framework designed to help high achievers transform stress into strength and pressure into excellence without burning out.

Jeff breaks down his three-zone model (body, mind, heart), explains why recovery is the true foundation of sustained performance, and shares practical “micro-resets” leaders can use immediately. They also explore why real change is rare without accountability and why high performers must be willing to challenge cultural norms to protect their energy, health, and longevity.

 

*Below is an AI-generated transcript, which may contain errors

 

Matt Zaun 

Jeff, welcome to Stories with Traction podcast.

 

Jeff Salzenstein

So awesome to be here. Thanks for having me. I'm excited that you're here.

 

Matt Zaun

there's something on your website that really stood out to me. I absolutely love this. That idea transforms stress into strength, pressure into excellence.

Doesn't everyone in their life want that? So first question I have for you, Jeff, if you're at a networking event or a party and someone asks you what you do, what's your response?

 

Jeff Salzenstein 

I help people own their zone. I'm going to help you own your zone. And then right away, you know, then now the interest is piqued.

Uh, the questions start coming and then we go, we go deeper into what owning your zone means. Owning your zone is a framework that's developed from my life's work, uh, in sport and business and in life.

And, uh, owning your zone can mean different things to different people. Right. And when you say that every person gets a chance to create their own unique version of owning your zone.

But when it comes to the framework that I teach and I share, when I go in and I work with leaders, high performers, CEOs.

voice. Thank you, Nokia's go. Founders, teams. When we go in, whether it's a workshop, you know, there could be five people in the room, or there could be 5,000 at a conference.

The framework is based around three zones. And my belief is that if you get these three zones, right, you're 80 to 90% there.

And those zones, zone one is restore the body. Zone two is rewire the mind. And zone three is reconnect to your heart.

Now, underneath all that, there's a spirit, you know, a spiritual practice that comes into play for people to truly own their zone at the deepest level.

But those three zones, and we share that and we unpack that and we simplify it in this model. It's a beautiful way for people to connect to which zone they could really be working on and which of the three they want to focus on.

And then a lot of people that are ambitious are like, well, I want to do all three zones. I'm like, let's go.

And so, yeah, that's, this is my life's work. And

 

Matt Zaun 

I appreciate you mentioning that. And so the images that I have about someone owning their zone, so dominating their space, being at peak performance, being a high achiever, a go-getter, going after, conquering, doing, right?

And there's so many people in life, and many of which that I work with, that are high achievers. I mean, they have an idea, they have a vision, and they just go after it.

They tackle it. I mean, they're into expansion. They're into, let me get something in the world that offers so much value to people that it can't be ignored.

The problem with that that I see, and I'm sure you see as well that I really want to dive into, is there could be an individual that is a very high achiever, someone that we would put on a pedestal.

We would say, wow, that person is doing great things, but yet they're so overcome with stress that it does come at the expense of them physically, of their mental health.

And I've seen too often addictions as it pertains to maybe an alcohol addiction or a drug, some type of drug use, even prescription drugs, abusing them to try to calm their nervous system, try to figure out how they can have some resemblance of peace in their life because they are so go, go, go.

So I really like that first zone that you spoke about, the restore the body.

 

Jeff Salzenstein 

What does restoring the body mean to you? Yes. So if we back up a second and we may get into this part of the story, right?

It was interesting, right? We started with framework today and not my story. Usually I start with the hero's journey and then we get to the own your zone.

But you asked me like, how do you help people? And so I lean into, I help people own their zone.

And so those three zones have been designed strategically around the very question that you asked. You know, I went on a journey as a professional tennis player and even before that as a tennis player, picking up a racket at four years old.

And what I saw on the program. Tour were people that were top 10 in the world, top 5 in the world, number 1 in the world, top 250 in the world, whatever their number was, were all striving up that ladder, up that ranking ladder, and many people were unhappy.

Many tennis players, pro tennis players were unhappy, including me at times. And I went on this journey in my 20s to try to understand how I could win at the highest level and have a sense of well-being, mental health, fulfillment.

And I think, again, what makes my work unique is I'm such a high achiever, like top of the top, 0.1% type mentality, like Kobe Bryant.

I have that Mamba mentality inside of me, and yet I went on this journey, this spiritual journey, this journey around mental health, around how can we own our zone without losing ourselves?

How can we get to the top of the mountain without losing ourselves? top themselves? And yet, also That is the thing that people really struggle with.

So when people hire me, when people are interested in my work, they're attracted to the pro athlete angle, the former pro athlete.

But I think they're also attracted to the hard and the soft skills that I'm this ultra high achiever that has a deep awareness of the soft skills that are required to live a more fulfilling life and to live a life with longevity.

And I think that's what we're after is like a life of longevity and fulfillment where we don't burn out after three years.

We can sustain our performance over time. And the only way you can do that is if you're restoring the body.

The body houses all of our trauma, our tension, our life experiences. And so if we're not sleeping, if we're not recovering, that's really what the foundation is, is like the best athletes in the world, whether you like them or not, Tom Brady, uh, LeBron James, uh,

Dara Torres in swimming years ago, Allison Felix in track and field. They had 20 year careers, 20 year plus.

And the only way they did that is if as soon as they were done training, they focused on taking care of their bodies.

And I think a lot of leaders neglect sleep because they're like, I'll sleep when I'm dead and I got work to do.

But if we're not focusing, if we're not thinking with a lens on how do I recover today? What are the ways I'm going to recover?

If we don't do that, it's a recipe for burnout long term and it impacts our presence, how we show up in the world.

It impacts our relationships. It impacts our performance over time. Sure.

 

Matt Zaun 

I appreciate you mentioned that. I read an article. This must be 15 plus years now. I don't even know the publication that it was in, but I remember the article talking about how really good athletes know how to turn it on and turn it off, almost like a light switch, right?

So they can go, go, go like they're on the field. They know how to be intense in the moment, but they do know how to turn it off so they could focus on.

 

Jeff Salzenstein 

You're happy hour. You're going to go have dinner. And I hear this all the time too. Hey, you go to these meetings, you go to these sales, you know, networking events, and everybody's drinking alcohol.

And I'm not here to tell people what they should or shouldn't do. I'm not here to judge anyone, but I am a performance coach.

And I do know that there's a direct correlation between alcohol and our performance. And yet that is the thing that glues us together, connects us, bonds us.

And so when people are, you know, burning the candle with late nights, whether it's through work, or whether it's going to these meetings, and they have a couple of cocktails, that's impacting their sleep and their performance.

And so when you ask how to do it, of course, that's the tricky question, right? How to turn it off.

I was telling you offline that I just had an hour and a half fascial massage. Well, that allowed me to drop in and completely relax because the conscious mind doesn't always want to just shut down and relax.

But if we don't have access to an hour and a half fascial massage. These are some of the things that we can do.

We need to find ways throughout the day to reset and to recover. That might be literally one breath, one breath.

Somebody that's like, I can't slow down. I can't meditate. We start with one breath and we inhale through the nose for a count of five, slight pause.

Maybe that's not so important in this context. And then we exhale through the mouth for five. And we get a 10 second, 10 to 12 second breath and we start there.

And then we extend that breath to a breathing snack. Maybe it's like three breaths, but we want to be averaging to access flow state or zone.

And I work with a top neuropsychologist in the world. He studied 70,000 brains. He studied the breath work. He works with a ton of NFL athletes and pro athletes and other sports.

And what he's educated me on. And what I've studied over the years is that the perfect breath style. The ideal, I shouldn't say perfect, the ideal breath cadence for flow state is basically it's about five to six breaths per minute.

So that's 10 to 12 seconds per breath. Inhale and exhale is a breath cycle. So if we can get people just breathing in that breathing cycle, then we can help them start to regulate their nervous system.

We can help them down regulate and relax. So even while you're working, if you can start to slow down your breath, but we don't want to slow it down too much.

We don't want to go to the meditation mode of like three breaths per minute and we're holding our breath.

We want to find that cadence. And so that's a, it's, it's based on physiology. It's based on science. We can track all of it.

We can go in and work with teams on this, where we can actually see the science and see the improvements.

But that's a really important activity. This is simple as the breath. There's another technique called a non sleep deep rest.

It's become more popular through, you know, thought leaders. Andrew Huberman. But if you just lay down for 10 minutes and you listen to some music that's at a specific frequency, and you can just lay down and close your eyes without taking the nap, but naps are okay too, for 10 minutes and just shut the body down for a moment and the mind, then that allows the nervous system to relax.

So those are a couple of things that can be done. I think of the leader who's got so much going on.

We got to find these little, these little breathing snacks, these little activities. And the thing that I find that's difficult for high achievers and high performers is sometimes they carry that into their workouts.

So like now they're doing 70 hard and they're like working out like crazy on top of all the cortisol that's being released.

And I feel like, again, it's too much yang and not enough yin. And so we got to find opportunities.

Another, I'm thinking a couple more right now before I, but before I pass it back to you for another question, but like getting morning sunlight, that's really important.

Outside, getting your eyes on the sun, not through a window, and putting your feet on the grass, that actually also starts to recharge the body.

There's electromagnetic current from the grass or from the ground into the body. And then combine that with getting sunlight on your eyes and it boosts metabolism, it boosts your mood, it changes your, it improves your circadian rhythm for sleep.

And so there's all these little biohacks that are completely free. And if we're a little bit more structured with that, we add these into our lives, we start to notice the shift.

 

Matt Zaun 

Yeah, I really appreciate you mentioning the breath work and the non-sleep deep breath. That's so important. And one of the things that came to my mind is I remember the story of Vince Lombardi that after his team would lose a football game, he would go in the locker room, hold up a football and say, gentlemen, this is a football.

And the whole intention was we have to go back to basics. And I found this interesting and also personal.

So I recently reached out to a personal trainer. And just to give you context, I've lifted weights for years, probably 15 years, very intense weightlifting.

And I feel like I've built up a level of strength. I feel like I knew what I was doing.

But I wanted a little bit more. So I reached out to a personal trainer. I went through an assessment, went through a session or two.

And basically, I learned I've been doing form wrong my whole life. I've been doing exercises I shouldn't have been doing.

I didn't really know what I was doing. So basically, this guy broke everything down for me. I was amazed.

And everything that I brought to him, I'm like, no, I want to be doing this. No, you shouldn't even be thinking about that right now.

You told me your goals. So if you want me to help you achieve your goals, you can't even be thinking about that.

That is like six months down the road. We need to be focusing. I have pain in my left. We need to get that under control.

We need to focus on your balance. We need to focus on form. We need to focus on what you mentioned, breath work.

I wasn't breathing properly. All these different things. And it's interesting because when we're talking about business, a lot of people that have studied anything about business, they're not being taught how to breathe properly.

They're not taught how to have stress reduction. And they're not taught how to perform under intense pressure, like the different things that you teach.

No one that goes through their MBA learns this stuff. So what are other misconceptions that you see business leaders have as it pertains to their day-to-day?

And I'll just kind of throw out some examples. Maybe it's the way they're sitting. Maybe it's the way that they conduct meetings and their postures off.

Maybe it's the way that they start their day. I know you mentioned like sunlight. Is there potential challenges with people driving to the office in a certain way?

Maybe they should. Shouldn't be listening to random radio stations. Maybe they should be listening to something else. Maybe they should be doing mindfulness.

there anything that you can point to that you say that typically the CEOs or C-suite, VPs, anyone out in a decision-maker seat, they're not even starting their day off right.

They're not even carrying themselves in a way that they need to. So what are some misconceptions that you can point to and say people typically think that this is the way to do it, but in reality, this is how they could be getting ready to perform under pressure?

 

Jeff Salzenstein 

It's a great question because as you're speaking into some of these examples and I'm thinking about, okay, here we go.

This goes, there's two big concepts before we get into the specifics. Number one, behavior change is typically hard. Not for everybody.

Some people, you can make that instant change, right? Like you get an awareness, you get an aha moment and you just make the change in the moment.

Okay. But most people like a new year's resolution. Struggle with behavior change. So the first thing is we've got to look at the accountability aspect.

So we're 12% more likely to create behavior change. If we hear something like this podcast, somebody hears it, there's a 12% chance people are going to make these changes.

Okay. But when you get an accountability partner, like a personal trainer, like you hired a trainer, or you have your romantic partner, you have a friend, you have a work colleague that's like, you know what, we got to, we got to, we got to do this.

We got to work on this. Will you be my buddy on this? And you have ongoing meetings and support.

You're 95% more likely to create behavior change. So before I start listing off all the different things, let's look at the accountability piece and, and set us up for success.

You did that with your training and you learned a value, many valuable lessons through that. The second concept is in order to make these changes that I'm about to share.

You're going to have to go against society's conventions or the way we We've been taught the way we've been conditioned.

So it's going to challenge your worldview. It's going to challenge. People are going to think you're weird if they see you doing it.

And I'll give you some examples now. Okay. So the first would be sitting is the new smoking. People are sitting too much.

So you either need to be standing or you need to be on the ground. So think of the CEOs that is in his office and he has a glass, you know, everyone can see in his room, in his office.

And he puts a yoga mat down and he has a little stool there, like a Kaizen stool where he would be kneeling.

If he was sitting on his laptop, kneeling on a yoga mat in there, instead of at his laptop with the big computer, people would be like, this guy is freaking nuts.

But in order to like, if you want to like, really, you got to be a little bit weird. You got to be a little bit strange.

You got to love your weird. I'm stealing that from my buddy, Frankie Russo's framework. He calls. You got to love your weird, but like you got to be willing to get on the floor and do your work or stand instead of sit.

I mean, that's so much time that we're sitting all day. And that is just wrecking our posture, wrecking our hip flexors, wrecking the low back.

And we, our bodies were not designed to sit. We're either supposed to be kneeling. We're supposed to be on the ground stretching.

We're supposed to be, um, and if we are sitting, we're sitting not in the way chairs were developed. So that's a big one.

Uh, the second one I mentioned, I mean, I mentioned morning sunlight, like who wakes up in the morning. The first thing they do is they grab the coffee, right?

You got to walk outside, get your eyes on the sun near, near sunrise. That's a weird thing, right? Like it's not normal.

People ask me like, Oh, can I just look through my window when I'm driving? I'm like, no, you have to get your, you have to get your eyes on the sun.

No sunglasses. We don't wear sunglasses. We get our eyes on the sun. That's completely counter than what we've been taught.

Okay. Getting back to the coffee, a lot of science, a lot of research is coming out now that we've got to either eat a meal first or for sure drink 24 to 32 ounces of water with sea salt before we even think about the coffee.

But what everyone's doing is going to the coffee first. So it's spiking cortisol and it's dehydrating us more. So right away, those are three big tips before we even get into, you know, the other things that we could talk about.

But the idea is that, or even alcohol, like it's society is going to say, got to drink alcohol because it's social.

I haven't touched alcohol for seven years. I go into social environments all the time, but it's going to, it's going to push you up against your edges and your beliefs.

And I've had clients tell me, I, you know, I play golf with my buddies. They're going to give me a hard time if I don't drink with them.

So I'm going to keep drinking. And I look at them. I'm like, I don't, I wouldn't care if they gave me a hard time.

you. I don't care. And by the way, once they get over the initial, they don't even remember anymore. doesn't matter.

Like, hey, I'm not drinking anymore, guys. And you just stand in your truth. Like, this is what I believe in.

I'm going to love my weird. I'm going to embrace what I believe in. So I think it's really important, again, before we get into all the different things that we could be doing every day that are counter, we have to look at the accountability piece and we have to look at the willingness to be different than the herd because you might feel judged and you might feel self-conscious.

 

Matt Zaun 

Wow. I appreciate, well, many things that you said, but the sitting is the new smoking. So right now I'm seated.

I have a sit-stand desk.

 

Jeff Salzenstein 

I'm contemplating, should I raise the desk, right? I didn't want to call you out. I didn't want to call you out.

I'm like, this dude's sitting and I'm standing. And by the way, I'll take it one step further. So fascia is the connective tissue in the body that is like the deep glue that holds the body together and it morphs into different positions.

Depending on how we're sitting and how we're standing and how we're walking and how we're moving. So, you know, foam rolling, you've probably done foam rolling before where you roll out the tissues and the muscles in the body.

I've got a mini lacrosse ball right now and I am just massaging the bottom of my feet right now.

I am giving myself a reflexology massage with my feet, finding the tight spots and I'm healing my feet while I'm doing this podcast episode.

You would never know that unless we started talking about this. And so now I'm healing my body because the foot has all these nerve endings and reflexology points.

So I'm actually opening up my body and healing myself while I'm doing a podcast.

 

Matt Zaun 

Wow. Okay. Love your weird note of that. Yeah. Awesome.

 

Jeff Salzenstein 

Here, I'll pick up the ball. Here's the little ball that I have. Good.

 

Matt Zaun 

So I just rubbing my feet out and like, it's my feet feel amazing right now. That's great. Good stuff.

I do want to touch on the accountability piece. I'm going the stat that you shared is something we should all pay attention to, right?

If we're listening, 12% chance of doing, but with the accountability, it skyrockets to 95%. Can you touch on the accountability piece just a little bit on what it would mean for someone to be held accountable?

I know it's going to be different for different people, but is there a certain duration that you have experienced, a certain amount of touch points in a given timeframe?

What would accountability look like to you? If you were to, if you're working with a high performer that they really want to do something, a big, big goal, what recommendation would you give them from an accountability piece?

 

Jeff Salzenstein 

Yeah. You know, my coaching, I meet people where they're at. And so I have a structure. I have a framework.

We have objectives based on what people share. We tailor and customize everything from a one-on-one perspective. But of course, if you're working with a big group, you know, you can't, you can't do that.

So in terms of the accountability piece, I'll give you one just real life example. I have. Or coaches right now.

So the coach and the speaker who wants to elevate knows that in order for him to go faster, he has to have coaches.

And I also find that interesting that CEOs, leaders, founders, they're at the top of their game. If they don't have a coach, that's always an interesting concept to me.

Like what's going on there? Because like the best athletes in the world have coaches. Novak Djokovic has five people around him.

You know, every top pro tennis player has a full team around them, only supporting them. So if you're a CEO and you've got a nice little salary, part of that should be invested in your development, whether it's physical, mental, emotional, business, whatever.

And so I have a coach right now and we're developing another keynote. It's a second keynote. Imagine if I tried to write that keynote on my own, I know me, that thing would get delayed unless, I mean, I have a deadline because I'm giving it in May, but I

I hired the coach and we get on a call every single week. And I know for a fact that if I didn't have that call every single week, I would be postponing the work, but I know I have to show up with a call with the content and the homework that he gave me.

So once a week cadence where you're checking in with someone, Hey, did you do your stuff? Like, and then, you know, if you don't do it, like, and by the way, this guy's not holding me to the fire.

I know I have a deadline in May, but I have this weekly check-in that keeps me on track. So I think just having a consistent cadence, um, once a month is probably a little bit too long, but like, I think once a week, once every couple of weeks, obviously it could be more daily or a couple of times a week.

I think that's open for discussion. Then what you do is you just, you do the experiment, right? Like, Hey, I want to lose 10 pounds and clean up my diet.

You know, that may be the accountability piece could be you and your wife just go all in. And I had a client that lost 40 pounds in nine months.

Once after he heard my section in a workshop around Restore the Body, and I focus on sleep. I don't focus on nutrition.

Oh, that's a huge piece. But when he heard it, he was like, I've got to change my lifestyle. And he enlisted his wife.

She lost 25 pounds. He lost 40, but they did it together. So I'm imagining the accountability is every night they're eating together, they're cooking together, they're working out some together.

And so there's just, it's just built into the lifestyle. And so if you're living on an island trying to do it yourself, it's 12%.

But if you've got somebody with you, it gets it goes up to 95%. It's a big difference. So I don't have a hard and fast answer.

I just want to give a couple of examples of like, it could be immersed in the lifestyle with a person that's in your corner.

Or it could be a weekly thing. But some regular accountability is really important.

 

Matt Zaun

Yeah, I really appreciate you mentioned that. And I do want to, I want to talk about the humility piece for a moment, share with you kind of where my brain is.

And then if you can, can, can add, you know. So my background is politics. I was a political speechwriter for quite some time.

I've worked with hundreds of politicians from across the country for many, many years, debate prep, press conference preparation, teaching people how to thrive in hostile speaking environments.

And one of the things, in order for me to properly coach a politician, they need to give me permission to tear into them.

If they have a stupid idea, I will sit them down and say, that is not a good idea. This isn't going to work.

You are completely off base. Let's work together in order to tweak this, make it workable. That's really important because if they have an opponent out there, they're not going to give them the grace.

They're going to blast them, right? So we need to make sure these ideas can actually be brought into reality.

And I see this often with really good business leaders. And I was actually recently talking to a gentleman that said, if he's in a boardroom and everyone around the table says,

to this individual and thinks his idea is great, one person needs to play devil's advocate. One person needs to say, that's not a good idea because of X, Y, and Z.

So I challenge everyone listening to this episode, if you don't have at least one person in your life telling you that that idea is not going to work the way you think it's going to work, or have you thought about doing this instead, to me, that's very concerning.

And I think great leaders have the humility to say, okay, here's the direction I want to go. Let's beat it up a little bit.

Let's spend 10 minutes talking about how this idea isn't going to work. And then once we come to the conclusion that maybe it will work, we go with it.

But we need to kind of iron things out. So I want to speak from a sports perspective. What have you seen with, maybe it's a personal trainer or a coach where they're pushing, they're pushing.

And you mentioned tennis a few times, like maybe it's, it's the swing is off. Maybe the stance is off and they know how to.

Push that athlete, not over the edge. They don't want to break them, but at least to get them in the idea that maybe they don't know everything.

Maybe they aren't 100% all the time. So can you speak to the humility piece and actually causing friction?

 

Jeff Salzenstein 

Yes. So interestingly enough, the keynote that I'm developing is around the concept, operational mindset of being open. I think that's the greatest gift that you can give yourself.

You can give others around you as a leader for your organization is to teach an open mindset, a mindset that's curious, a mindset that asks questions, a mindset that challenges what you believe.

So the person that's developed enough personally and professionally can actually challenge their own beliefs and wonder if they are true or how, like that is, that is like the.

Depth of where we want to go to for organizations and for leaders is like, can you check the ego at the door and get very curious and inquisitive?

When I was 14 years old, I had a coach and he looked at me one day on the court.

He said, you know, he didn't phrase it as a problem, but it was kind of like a mixed bag here, but he was just like, you know what I notice about you?

I don't think he said it this way. You ask more questions than any person I've ever met in my life.

And he said that when I was 14. So I've always had this insatiable curiosity. In order to grow and learn, you just have to be curious.

You have to ask great questions, right? And so I think the people that think they know it all, the people that think they, you know, they love to be, I like to be heard too.

I like to talk. Yeah, I got the gift, but the gift of gap. But I think being able to ask great questions and listen, challenge your own beliefs is so, so important.

 

Matt Zaun 

Going into dangerous territory.

 

Jeff Salzenstein 

I actually got one more thing as a relationship. I look at my sport, you know, Novak Djokovic, Rafa Nadal, the new guard with Sinner and Alcarez and all the great women that are on the tour, Zabalenka and Coco Gaub, like all these players, the ones that are at the top of the game, they're always tweaking and testing.

They're not just like, oh, I'm already number two in the world or I'm number one. I don't need to get better.

The old adage in tennis from one player that I was actually, I think I first heard from Patrick McEnroe, but he said, you're not getting 3% better every year, you're getting worse.

And so plateaus are a big problem for humans and a big problem for companies when they plateau, if they don't innovate, if they don't see what's coming in the future.

And the only way you can do that is if you're curious and you're open-minded and you're willing to grow and get better.

And so I've watched Novak Djokovic transform over the years, his, if you look at video. And there's people that might be listening to this podcast that says, no, I can just focus on the numbers in the business and we'll be successful.

And I would argue that, yes, you may build a billion dollar company, but you're going to wake up someday and go, my health's not right.

My relationships are right. I'm not in the right place spiritually. To be able to have everything to own your zone, it's a deep dive personally to really look at yourself.

 

Matt Zaun 

Yeah. So I have one more question for you, other than giving you an opportunity to share where people can get in touch with you.

But my last question would be, I feel like often, especially as a society, we love throwing out big goals, right?

So if I were to tell you, you know, Jeff, I'm going to lose 40 pounds this year, right? That's a big goal.

Like that has some pizzazz behind it. People, wow, you're going to lose 40 pounds? That's incredible. But if I were to say, I'm just going to be under 2,600 calories a day and then see what happens.

I know where my maintenance calories are. So I will lose a ton of weight if I'm under 2,600 calories a day.

You mentioned these little minor tweaks. Often in business, we want to talk about scaling, going into different markets, increasing by 20%, whatever the case may be.

How would you encourage leaders to just focus on those little tiny details that after a while add up to that big gob?

How do you get someone focused on, you mentioned breath work. You mentioned some very, very minute details that lead to big change.

How does someone stay inspired with the boring?

 

Jeff Salzenstein 

Yeah, it's a phenomenal question. Some insights that I'll share around this. Whenever I meet someone and they want to do something for them that's big, one of the big questions I ask them is, okay, let's just fast.

It's a pretty straightforward question. Let's go future. Let's fast forward three years. What does your life look like in three years?

And when I ask that question to a lot of people, they have, even though they want They to do the thing.

They, they're not able to clearly articulate what they want to create. And that's a problem because before we even get to like the small changes, that's a problem because if you don't have the vision and the clarity, there's a good chance you're not going to take the daily little actions to get there.

A couple of examples from my world. When I was 12 years old, and it's interesting in this podcast, it's been so awesome because we've really like gone unpacked.

We've gone deep into like insights and like examples and strategies so that people can walk away and make some real changes.

But we didn't talk about my story today. And I'm like, gosh, most podcasts, and you're the story guy. And we didn't even talk about my story.

But when I was 12 years old, there's going to be a part two, Jeff. I'm like, dude, they need to hear the story.

Like the story is like, wow. Like it's crazy what I like, but when I was set them up, set them up for part two.

 

Matt Zaun

Yeah, exactly.

 

Jeff Salzenstein 

But when I was 12 years old, you know, at the time it was in the 80s. I'm 52 years old in my 50s.

And so I had this dream to go to Stanford because Stanford was the preeminent college tennis program in the 80s, Dick Gould.

And when I was 12 in Denver, Colorado, not a tennis state, it's a ski state. We don't come from Colorado and go play pro tennis.

It doesn't happen until one or two other guys did it. And then I did it as well. But like at 12, I had a dream of going to Stanford.

I had a dream. And somehow that dream allowed me to take the actions to put myself in position for that to happen.

And it did happen. It doesn't always happen for everyone. But you've got to have the vision of where you want to go.

So most people aren't clear on the vision. When I had came off the pro tour, I started coaching tennis.

And I saw these online thought creators, thought leaders building online businesses through YouTube videos, tennis instruction. And I thought, oh, these guys are doing it.

I can do it too. And I had, I kept saying the statement to myself and to others. The daily consistent actions that are consistent with that vision that's in the future.

And people fall off of that because they're, again, not clear on the vision. And then they get distracted from the things that are really important right now.

The final piece of it is, again, getting back to owning your zone. Can we do all these things with a lens on taking care of ourselves?

Can we emotionally regulate? Can we avoid going to a negative spot as we're doing this? Because 80% of our thoughts are negative, especially at a subconscious level.

It's a survival mechanism. And we have 60,000 thoughts per day. So we have to be very aware. I believe one of the reasons we're on this planet is to become self-aware enough to train our mind to become more neutral or positive.

Because we have this bent on going negative. And then on the body, we take care of our sleep. We eat really well.

We move like we do all the basics really well. And if we can create a whole. Realistic performance model where we have a three-year vision.

We're taking the daily action steps towards that vision. Let's say it's in business to win in business, whatever that is.

And then we're also taking care of ourselves. You got it. You got it. You did it. Now, it's not easy.

It's not for the faint of heart. It takes courage, commitment, and a willingness to grow. And it's not unlike a five-set match at the US Open that's grueling where you suffer.

Rafa Nadal always used to talk about you have to be willing to suffer in order to like to win.

So you got it. There's going to be suffering through this process, but when you have the model in place and you have consistency and people around you supporting you, it's a beautiful way to live and a beautiful way to work.

And that's my calling. That's why I'm here. That's why I found out in the second half of my life why I did tennis for so long, why I played pro tennis, why I studied high performance for 30 years, why I became a coach so that I could be on this podcast right now right now.

 

Matt Zaun 

And recover harder. That's so important, right? I've never heard that before. That's so important. Are we properly recovering? And then the third and final piece that I'm going to have as a takeaway, but I challenge everyone listening to really think about this.

You had mentioned that stat that when someone listens to something, they have a 12% chance of implementing it, but that skyrockets to 95% when they have the accountability.

So for anyone out there listening that you would accomplish any big goal, what are you doing to hold yourself accountable?

Who is holding you accountable? And what are the different categories that you have for that accountability? What's the duration?

What's the timeline? How frequently are you having someone check in with you, whether it's in person or virtually? I think that's really important to figure out, to really take a pulse of, do we even have accountability in our life for what we want to accomplish?

So Jeff, really appreciate everything you said. someone wants to get more information on what you do, they want to reach out to you.

For your services, where's the best place they can go to get that information?

 

Jeff Salzenstein 

Yeah, again, we didn't get into the story today. But, you know, my tennis journey was super interesting on how it set me up to be the coach that I am today.

And the speaker that I am today, I decided just over three years ago, to learn the business of speaking, just over three years ago, it's going like this, we're getting on stages, we're impacting a lot of people, I love being able to go deep with folks one on one, if it's the right fit.

But really, I want to touch with this message that I shared today, I want to touch millions of lives.

And the only way I can do that is if whoever's listening can think of like, okay, who could I connect him with?

It's all word of mouth. It's all organic. It's like creating this swell. And so you can find me at jeffsalzenstein.com.

And it's S-A-L-Z-E-N-S-T-E-I-N. And then I have a LinkedIn, it's very active and an Instagram, the handles are both Jeff Salzenstein, five days a week of thought leadership there.

I think that's how we connected. And yeah, just send me an email. So I hired a publisher about two years ago.

Okay.

 

Matt Zaun 

Good stuff.